Keith Lockhart
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"Keith Alan Lockhart" is the conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra and the principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra. He was the music director of the Utah Symphony from 1998 - 2009. He has also held honorary titles in many other orchestras.

Keith Lockhart became the twentieth conductor of the Boston Pops in 1995. Lockhart holds the Julian and Eunice Cohen Boston Pops Conductor chair. He has worked with a wide array of established artists from the entertainment world. He promotes programs that focus on talented young musicians from the Tanglewood Music Center, Boston Conservatory, and Berklee College of Music. He has conducted more than 1,500 Boston Pops concerts and introduced the innovative JazzFest and EdgeFest series, featuring prominent jazz and indie artists performing with the Pops. Lockhart has also introduced concert performances of full-length Broadway shows, including Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel and Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, and the PopSearch and High School Sing-Off competitions. Under his leadership, the Boston Pops has commissioned several new works-including The Dream Lives On, a tribute to the Kennedy brothers, which was premiered in May 2010 during the 125th anniversary season-and dozens of new arrangements.

More Keith Lockhart on Wikipedia.

[Country-pop recording artist Trisha Yearwood is Lockhart's guest soloist for the show.] The Fourth concert can be an unparalleled opportunity for a soloist ... but it can also be a little nerve-wracking for them. This program goes together in a heartbeat. It's rehearsed quickly and then -- it's on live television.

The majority of them are operating under deficits, so our situation is not unique. . . . But our situation is exacerbated here because we're a small community. And what will differentiate us is how we're going to go about maintaining our high-class standards.

[So lucrative a proposition is this link with the Pops for RCA Victor that the label has just renewed its contract, originally for six albums, with Lockhart. That's an] unusual commitment, ... particularly in the world of classical recordings.

[It caught on and has stuck, to musicians' amusement and American audiences' unfazed pleasure.] I'd like to say it's used because of its air of solemn ceremony, ... But honestly, I think it's the cannon and the bells.

It really plays right into Faith's strengths.

The goal of the Pops ... is still to keep the music somehow reflective of the popular culture of the day, but also reach out. Really, you know, the Pops is the best cultural outreach tool we have for classical music. Fiedler would still recognize much of our repertoire.

She's just an amazing, compelling performer. She has a wonderful vocal presence and really knows what to do with a song. She'll be fun. I guarantee it.

But I was doing too much pops, and that was not what I really wanted.

One of the lasting ironies in classical music, ... we use this piece written by a Russian to celebrate victory over the French in the 19th century.